Criteria

Cursive's guitarist Stephen Pedersen
recorded two albums with White Octave,
Style #6312 (Deep Elm, 2000) and
Menergy (Initial, 2001),
and then launched Criteria with En Garde (Initial, 2003),
that featured Mike Sweeney on drums, AJ Mogis on bass, and Ian McElroy on keyboards.
Their all-out punk attack yielded the high-class emocore of
Talk in a Crowded Room (just under two minutes),
opener The Coincidence,It Happens, Play on Words,
The Life,Me on Your Front Porch. Criteria
might be more faithful to the spirit (if not the sound) of Fugazi than
Cursive ever were.

When We Break (Saddle Creek, 2005) perfected the idea
with more focused performances and slicker/grander production.
The quality of Perdersen's songwriting
(Self Help, Prevent the World,
Grey Matter, Run Together, Kiss The Wake)
was finally matched by both the players and the producer.